Bear

Another biblical animal that is also a person’s name is: ‘dov,’ bear. In the Bible, however, it is only an animal’s name, but it became a human male’s first name later in history.

Today, bears no longer populate the Land of Israel, but it is mentioned several times in biblical stories:

“Your servant slew both the lion and the bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God”

The plural of ‘dov’ is ‘doo•bim.’ The biblical story tells how dangerous the female ‘doo•bim’ were as we learn from the story about the children who mocked the prophet Elisha:

“And he went up from there to Beth-El; and as he was going up by the way, there came out little children from the city, and mocked him, and said to him, ‘Go up, you bald head; go up, you bald head.’ And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came out two female bears from the wood, and tore forty two children of them”

The ‘dov’ is mentioned in the New Testament only once in John’s vision:

“The beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority”